COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The way Brendan Bigelow remembers it is long and detailed. The Cal running back hit someone, he spun away. He hit someone else, and spun away again. He kept churning, willed his legs to keep moving, begged for balance when he felt certain he was going to tumble to the ground.

Finally, when Bigelow looked up after eluding both Ohio State linebacker Ryan Shazier and safety Orhian Johnson, he saw daylight. Eighty-one yards of daylight.

The way Bigelow's fellow tailback remembers it is much more succinct: "It's called turbo," Isa Sofele said. "Press the turbo button."

Bigelow, a Golden Bears sophomore, found his turbo speed only after he more-impressively eluded the grasping tackles of two Buckeyes, raced down the sideline and registered the longest run by an opponent at Ohio Stadium. Bigelow carried the ball only three more times -- including another impressive 59-yard TD scamper -- and totaled 160 yards.

Four carries, 160 yards, two touchdowns. An average of 40 yards per carry. Not bad for a kid who still feels as if he's recovering from two ACL surgeries on his right knee in high school.

"I'm kind of close," Bigelow said of his recovery. "[But] I don't feel like I'm all the way there yet."

Still, the performance was a breakthrough for Bigelow, who had logged 40 yards total in the past two seasons. The running back had just one carry in each of Cal's first two games, a result of playing behind a senior (Sofele), still recovering from injuries, and still earning the good favor of Bears coach Jeff Tedford.

"He has great speed, no doubt about it," Tedford said. "And I think he showed when he gets in the open field, he's going to run away from people."

That was the extent of the praise from Bigelow's coach after one of college football's highlight runs of the day. His teammates, however, were a bit more effusive about a player who says he runs a 4.3 second 40-yard dash. Bigelow got his yards on the edges Saturday, finding ways to fake defenders and blaze past once he turned the corner.

"He's so fast, so electric," quarterback Zach Maynard said. "He has that burst most guys don't have. He was huge out there for us. He put on a clinic today."

Even OSU's defense couldn't figure out how Bigelow was so slippery.

"I was on the backside and I thought he was down," cornerback Bradley Roby said. "I even slowed down because I thought the play was over. Their players make plays, too. Of course, we should have had him down.

"That's sad. That's sad. It's very frustrating because we want to be one of the best defenses in the country. When that happened, it's just like, 'wow, we can't allow that.'"

For Bigelow, however, the 81- and 59-yard runs weren't just a way to get his name into Ohio State's record books. The performance just might earn him more playing time for Cal.

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